Publication
Birlinn Ltd (2007), 240 pages
Original publication date
1984
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Description
Living in a no-bedroomed tenement flat, coping with the cold and boredom of busconducting and the bloody-mindedness of Head Office, knowing that emigrating to Australia is only an impossible dream, Robert Hines finds life to be ¿a very perplexing kettle of coconuts¿. The compensations are a wife and child, and a gloriously anarchic imagination. The Busconductor Hines is a brilliantly executed, uncompromising slice of the Glasgow scene, a portrait of working-class life which is unheroic but humane.
User reviews
LibraryThing member thorold
A surprisingly funny account of life near the bottom of the heap in Glasgow. Written in the eighties, but probably drawing more on Kelman's experience in the seventies for its description of working life in a bus garage.
As everyone says, it's Kelman's language that makes (or, depending on your
The story definitely takes second place to the language here, but for what it's worth it's an account of the paradoxical situation Hines finds himself in: to save his job and his marriage and get a decent place to live, Hines knows he needs to advance in life. He's an intelligent man, and is perfectly capable of acting in prudent and reliable ways if he wants to, but he understands that this would be a betrayal of an important part of his life, so he simply can't do it, any more than he can greet (i.e. weep) in public. He needs to stay at a level in life where he has so little that he's free to be irresponsible and jeopardise everything he has.
As everyone says, it's Kelman's language that makes (or, depending on your
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point of view, breaks) the book: it's a wonderfully lively, bouncy, even lyrical, torrent of words that cleverly captures the flavour of the way working-class people in Glasgow speak without slavishly following the rules of any existing dialect. It's a similar technique to the one Anthony Burgess uses in A clockwork orange, giving Kelman the freedom to indulge in literary flights of fancy when he needs to, whilst avoiding confronting the reader with more strange words than he needs to produce the required degree of alienation. As Burgess demonstrated, the danger is that you get carried away with your own cleverness: Kelman's a bit more restrained, but he does occasionally go over the top, notably with the succession of wilder and wilder images he uses for the bus crews' green uniforms, ending up like pastiche Flann O'Brian. The story definitely takes second place to the language here, but for what it's worth it's an account of the paradoxical situation Hines finds himself in: to save his job and his marriage and get a decent place to live, Hines knows he needs to advance in life. He's an intelligent man, and is perfectly capable of acting in prudent and reliable ways if he wants to, but he understands that this would be a betrayal of an important part of his life, so he simply can't do it, any more than he can greet (i.e. weep) in public. He needs to stay at a level in life where he has so little that he's free to be irresponsible and jeopardise everything he has.
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LibraryThing member papalaz
James Kelman is the only Brit shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2009. His novel A Disaffection which I reviewed here previously was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 1989. His novel How late it was, how late won the Booker
There are no heroes in Kelman. There are no massive plot arcs, no tricksy twists, no gratuitous redemptions. Kelman specialises in real life - and brilliant clear prose. His ear is acute for ordinary Scottish Glasgow dialect and he records it in such a way that it rings from the page. His eye for the telling trivial vignette is piercing and he puts these snatches of dialogue and fragments of life together in such a skilled way that you slow down your reading pace to savour them. I am always sad to finish a Kelman work be it a short story or a a novel - The Bus Conductor Hines is no exception.
Rab Hines is a bus conductor. He is not a great bus conductor - his record is poor. He hates the job.Rab Hines is a husband and father. He is neither a great husband nor a wonderful father. Rab is just like you and me - pretty ordinary. Rab gets by. He does his best. He makes the most of what he has - even the no-bedroomed tenement flat under threat of imminent demolition that he and his family inhabit uncomfortably.
Quite simply put James Kelman does what few novelists these days can do - he describes the ordinary and makes it true. He chooses and uses his language to convince you of the humanity in all of us. Long may he continue so to do.
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Prize for Fiction in 1994. With the possible exception of J G Ballard he is probably the finest Brit writer of English active today.There are no heroes in Kelman. There are no massive plot arcs, no tricksy twists, no gratuitous redemptions. Kelman specialises in real life - and brilliant clear prose. His ear is acute for ordinary Scottish Glasgow dialect and he records it in such a way that it rings from the page. His eye for the telling trivial vignette is piercing and he puts these snatches of dialogue and fragments of life together in such a skilled way that you slow down your reading pace to savour them. I am always sad to finish a Kelman work be it a short story or a a novel - The Bus Conductor Hines is no exception.
Rab Hines is a bus conductor. He is not a great bus conductor - his record is poor. He hates the job.Rab Hines is a husband and father. He is neither a great husband nor a wonderful father. Rab is just like you and me - pretty ordinary. Rab gets by. He does his best. He makes the most of what he has - even the no-bedroomed tenement flat under threat of imminent demolition that he and his family inhabit uncomfortably.
Quite simply put James Kelman does what few novelists these days can do - he describes the ordinary and makes it true. He chooses and uses his language to convince you of the humanity in all of us. Long may he continue so to do.
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LibraryThing member sometimeunderwater
Bleak, bitter and wonderfully humane. 1980's Glasgow sounds horrible.
LibraryThing member Steve38
Deliberately heavy in the use of profanities and Glaswegian dialect Mr Kelman wanted to write a book reflecting his own life experience and those in similar circumstances. He succeeded. The mundane life of Busconductor Hines, his wife and young child. Living in sub standard tenement housing i a job
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he doesn't like, probably capable of better things but he just can't bring himself to be bothered. Worried about his wife leaving him - but he needn't. She doesn't. Show Less
Language
Original language
English
ISBN
1846970393 / 9781846970399
Physical description
240 p.; 5 inches
Pages
240